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World Media 2006: Latin America

The region's major economies are blighted by boom-bust cycles, political instability, crime and corruption, yet its advertising and media industries are as diverse and energetic as anywhere.

Out of adversity come style, panache and creative genius. That's the
theory, at any rate - and one that many in the media and advertising
industries of South America readily subscribe to.

How else to explain the fact that, although the region's major economies
go through desperate boom-bust cycles, are riddled with crime and
corruption and flirt occasionally with the most repressive of military
regimes, its media and advertising industries are consistently as
vibrant as any you'll find anywhere.

Take Argentina, whose economy, after a run of dismal years in the 90s,
collapsed completely in 2001. There were riots in the streets, four
presidents came and went in the space of ten days and the peso was
massively devalued, wiping out the life savings of the country's middle
classes at a stroke.

As a result, more than 50 per cent of the population dropped below the
poverty line.

Business as usual, the cynics said. And yet, did any of this stop the
citizens of Buenos Aires being the coolest people on the planet?
Hardly.

It's their birthright - and they exude a spectacular gaucho arrogance
that pervades not just Argentina but also neighbouring Brazil and other
South and Central American creative centres.

It's true that the rest of the world does not always see it that
way.

Take, for instance, the sour protests whipped up to greet George Bush as
he attended the Buenos Aires Summit of the Americas in November - at the
head of the march was a fat, formerly drug-addled, rather pathetic
one-time footballer, called Diego Maradona.

Yet the freshness of the creative ideas that emerge from the region and
the energetic diversity of its media are undeniable facts - and if it
wasn't for economic and political instability, the rest of the world
would be keener to develop closer ties.

Greater stability would also help to foster a clearer regional identity
- something that was clearly top-of- mind at a recent meeting held in
Venezuela at which the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Peru and
Uruguay agreed to fund the launch of a pan-Latin American television
channel - in a bid to wrest the international news agenda back from the
likes of CNN.

Its progress will be closely watched by the the rest of the world -
especially now that Rupert Murdoch has decreed that South American
expansion will be one of the highest priorities for his newly acquired
DirecTV business.